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A unique device, but you're better off waiting for the sequel

The Fire's defining features are fun, but we can't help but feel as though they're merely gimmicks designed by Amazon to demonstrate the company's brilliance -- and at the expense of battery life, to boot. Dynamic Perspective might be useful in a few cases (games, mainly), but it won't provide the user with functionality they'd sorely miss if they went with an iPhone or flagship Android device.

Not only is the Fire lacking in useful new features, but its high price and exclusivity to AT&T guarantee its irrelevance. The company owes its success to millions of loyal online shoppers and bookworms who use Amazon for its convenience and aggressive pricing, so why come out with a smartphone that isn't particularly convenient, and isn't particularly cheap? By no means is the Fire a horrible phone, but it's a forgettable one. You might want the eventual Fire Phone 2, perhaps, but for now, you're better off sticking with what you know.

Amazon's debut phone isn't bad, per se, but there's little incentive for anyone to switch carriers or platforms to buy it. Its unique features don't provide enough utility, and come at the expense of both battery life and performance.

But the bigger question for most people isn't going to be "does this phone do anything useful"; it's "should I buy this phone rather than some other competing phone?" For the time being, the answer is no.

None of the Fire Phone's flaws are totally insufferable, but there's just no reason to suffer them at all. Fire OS is workable but mediocre as a smartphone operating system, and the hardware doesn't bring anything to the table that counteracts that.

t’s not a bad phone, it just isn’t in the same league as a top-tier Android phone or iPhone. When you look past its purchasing powers and its fringe benefits—which can’t be ignored—what you have left is a relatively unexciting handset.

Amazon’s consumption-first approach works on tablets, for watching and reading and shopping. But tablets are for fun. Smartphones are for work ... Amazon doesn’t understand that, and the Fire Phone doesn’t reflect it.

This is a phone for folks who only want to live in Amazon's world and don't need access to the latest and greatest apps and services rival devices offer. I suspect most people don't fall into that category though.

First Looks

Spec-wise, it isn't the most impressive phone ... it's simply what you'd expect from an average phone. Of course, Amazon's focus is on what makes it unique; the gestures, imaging prowess, Dynamic Perspective and Amazon services are differentiating factors that it can boast over other smartphones.

It seems a lot like a Kindle Fire, in phone form. But it has a few special features -- a universal scanning app, and a crazy set of infrared cameras that create 3D-like phone navigation -- that could set it apart from the competition.

We were excited about the phone coming into our hands-on, but ultimately, we walked away feeling somewhat unenthusiastic about it. It comes off as a bit gimmicky, and it's missing some features that would make it competitive with phones from the three major operating systems.

The marquee feature here is Dynamic Perspective, which leverages four front-facing cameras and infrared technology to track a user's face and adjust perspective on the display accordingly. This serves a few purposes beyond simple eye-candy effects.

It may not come with the pixel densities, screen size, or bleeding edge processor that some of its competitors have, but the Fire Phone does offer some truly dazzling technological innovations—namely a new face- and gesture-tracking interface.

The hardware is fine, but it is priced at the high end with the iPhone 5s, HTC One (M8), and Galaxy S5 and doesn't compete with these devices in terms of smartphone capability. I expected to see the Fire priced similarly to the Nexus 5, OnePlus One, or Moto X.

It's solid, though doesn't feel especially premium in the hand. Think along the lines of a Nexus 4 rather than, say, an HTC One M8 or iPhone 5s. The rubberized outer edges are at least grippy and the whole thing is creak-free, aided by the fact that the battery is non-user-removable.

Amazon wants to make buying the Fire phone an easy decision for its tens of millions of Prime customers. It’s not only putting the Amazon store in its users pockets, it’s adding its whole range of digital content from music and videos to books.

You have a homescreen with a giant carousel of your most-recently used apps and content, along with a standard app grid underneath. It involves a lot of big, chunky graphics on a black background, but it's a remarkably consistent aesthetic that works for casual use.

The Fire Phone’s “app grid” isn’t so different from app screens on other phones except that the icons have a 3D quality and move slightly as your head moves. This is because the sensors at all four corners of the front of the phone are detecting the relation of your head to the device.

This isn't just a spec-matching phone to go out and play toe-to-toe with the Galaxy S5 and LG G3 — it's Amazon's take on what a phone should be, and it's packed in enough features and use-cases into a single device that more than a few people will be interested in it.

The Fire does have Nokia Here maps, but anyone that uses Android or even iOS will be disappointed to see their favorite mapping app missing. Having these apps missing from a tablet is unfortunate, on a smartphone, it’s a huge gaping hole.

Having used a lot of Samsung and Apple smartphones, I wasn't expecting much from the Fire Phone, but I must admit, I have been pleasantly surprised. I was a bit skeptical about not having Google Services on this phone, but after using it for a few days I can't say I really miss it much. The...

PROS Display is amazing Good battery life Built to last Unique Powerful processor CONS Amazon App Store (VERY limited) I have tnjoyed everything about this phone with the exception of the app store. It is so limited it is unbelievable, hopefully Amazon fixes this soon, it has...